Alta Murgia

During the last three decades, in Murgia Alta the dominant semi-natural grassland ecosystem characterized by endemic and threatened species has been exposed to accelerated processes of habitat degradation, fragmentation and biotic contamination (i.e., woody encroachment), within and next to its borders, on local biodiversity, due to both agricultural intensification (transformation of grassland pastures into agricultural cereal crops intensification) and land abandonment. Furthermore, the long-term below-average rainfall (climate change), the increasing of either legal and illegal mining activities or wind farms infrastructures, fire events and the spread of invasive species contribute to the threat to the ecosystem, which is in danger of destruction.